Clik here to view.
On her rare day off, I spoke with Sarah O’Rourke, a registered veterinary technician who hits the Mendocino road with the renewed “Care-a-Van” spay and neuter program, about her life’s work caring for animals.
O’Rourke’s path in animal medicine began as a family affair when she was still a child.
“My mom is also a registered vet tech, and worked for different vet hospitals, as well as Sonoma County Animal Care Services while I was growing up.” explained O’Rourke. “So we always had foster animals, we always had our own pets; I grew up riding horses, so we always had a couple of horses in the backyard, goats and chickens.”
At age 14, she began her first paying job working in a horse training stable, which progressed to a high school internship at Sonoma County Animal Care Services.
It was during this time that she became hooked on animal care, after experiencing the chaotic cadence of a “neuter-a-thon”; an event where a group of veterinarians, veterinary technicians and volunteers endeavor to spay and neuter as many animals as possible in a day-long event. She loved what she described as “…a big dance, everybody gets into a rhythm and finds their place and it’s just a lot of fun, plus I loved what we were doing for the community.”
A move north in her senior year brought her family to Mendocino County, where she began working part time at the local veterinary practice, Mendocino Animal Hospital.
Clik here to view.
Her career took brief forays into other fields as she explored other passions, such as a couple year stint as a restaurant cook in Redwood Valley. After that, the self described “outdoorsy” animal lover took on her most loved position of all time – a firefighter for the Forest Service.
“That was probably my favorite job ever, just because I was outside in the woods all the time. Then I injured my shoulder, so physically I was having a hard time with the firefighting. I took some time off and went back to training horses. After I had my daughter, I decided I needed something that was a little bit more stable than training horses, and that’s when I started volunteering for Mendocino County Animal Care Services. A couple of months after beginning to volunteer there, I was hired on.” That was around 2016, and O’Rourke’s mother happened to be with Mendocino County Animal Care Services as well, running the original Care-a-Van program.
One job just isn’t enough for the dedicated O’Rourke, who is also the live-in manager for a horse sanctuary in Potter Valley owned by the non profit organization Neigh Savers Foundation. Described as a home for rescue horses, the sanctuary also houses three of O’Rourke’s personal horses.
When asked why she chose shelter medicine over working with a private veterinary practice, O’Rourke provided an indepth look at her world that led me to a greater appreciation and understanding of the work done by Mendocino County Animal Care Services.
“Our primary job is taking care of the animals in the shelter. So we get to know those animals really well. The general practice vets are more about setting up, you know, medical plans for animals and keeping up on the regular vaccines and the regular heartworm prevention, it’s just a very different feel for the type of medicine. The vet hospitals are very much wanting to offer a range of medicine from gold standard to what some of the lower income clients can afford, whereas we’re going to be more set up, more geared towards only servicing those low-income people.
“I really like interacting with the animals in the shelter, I like being able to follow that animal from the time that it comes in as a stray or an animal that was pulled from a really bad situation and watch them improve both medically and mentally and get to the point where they are happy adoptable animals that can join something’s family. In the shelter medicine world we’re a little bit more focused on just providing spay neuter services, we don’t do prescriptions of any kind. So we don’t see animals and then prescribe them heartworm prevention or flea-tick medication, but we can offer some urgent care.
“We’ve had some really great animals that came with major medical issues into the shelter, and we’ve been lucky enough to have bosses who let us try to save the animals versus some shelters who would just say it’s, you know, too big of a medical cost, we’re going to euthanize.”
I really like interacting with the animals in the shelter … watch them improve both medically and mentally and get to the point where they are happy adoptable animals that can join someone’s family.
Sarah O’Rourke, registered veterinary technician
O’Rourke went on to describe incredible acts of care, where shelter workers went the extra mile and then some, to rehabilitate seriously injured animals that traditionally may have been euthanized.
“We had one dog who came in with what we believe was a snake bite. When it presented, it showed as a large draining abscess on his chest. As we started to clip the hair from around the area, there was bruising from the dog’s chest all the way down into his groin. All of that bruising turned into necrotic tissue and sloughed off. So we had this poor dog in our clinic for months and months, but he was such a great animal and was so easy to treat and handle. He made a phenomenal recovery, and wound up with a really wonderful home. The snake bite wound turned into necrotizing fasciitis. So all of that tissue that had been damaged died and sloughed off, and for a long time this dog had, it was probably a 24 inch by 6 inch swath of skin gone. His personality was just so great and he was such an easy dog to handle and treat. He made a wonderful recovery whereas before, everybody who looked at him was like, oh, that’s really bad. I believe he was a Malamute cross. He was a big, big fluffy husky type.
Clik here to view.
“We also had another one that had come into us after a trailer had caught on fire, and that poor dog had suffered burns across a lot of her body, awful, and we wound up having to amputate one of her legs because it was too damaged to be saved. Everything else she had managed to heal up beautifully, and one of our volunteers ended up adopting her, so we still get to see her pretty frequently. You know, in normal situations, we probably would have had to euthanize her, but because we’ve had very supportive bosses throughout the years we’ve been allowed to help dogs that would otherwise not be stable.
“One of the nice things about being at a shelter versus being general practice is that we don’t have to spend a whole lot of funds to help these animals where in a regular vet hospitals, they have to make a profit and it’s so they can pay their employees, so they can keep their staff going and keep their doors open. Because we are county funded and we get a lot of things at discounted prices through different veterinary medical vendors, we can cut a lot of costs on a lot of these medical treatments and help injured animals.
“One of the other things that I would really like the public to know is Animal Care Services does go out of their way to provide as much services at a really discounted rate or free rate for transient owners who are struggling with their pets. We can offer free vaccines and microchips, and even free spay and neuter if it helps them find housing. Animal Care Services also does a very small-scale kind of pet pantry thing; there are some transient people who will come in when they’ve fallen on hard times and get dog food and cat food for their pets if they need it.”
O’Rourke confirmed that the name of the recently revived spay and neuter program is indeed still “Care-a-Van”, and explained that Animal Care Services is looking to fundraise soon with one of their partner non-profit groups to get graphics for the side of the van to display the name and contact information.
Clik here to view.
Nineteen surgeries and 40 vaccinations were completed at the most recent Care-a-Van event held at JD Redhouse in Willits, where the public was reportedly grateful for the services (and clamoring for more). O’Rourke explained that the team scheduled a lighter amount of surgeries that day in order to accommodate for increased vaccinations, but were able to add many folks to the wait list or get them scheduled for future surgeries with the program.
Coming up on February 8, the Care-a-Van will be visiting the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians in the Sanel Valley. At this event, the van will primarily be performing surgeries for animals brought in by tribal members, but the general public is welcome to come out for vaccines.
When asked about advice she would give to someone interested in a career as a registered veterinary technician, O’Rouke replied, “Definitely reach out and ask about volunteering. We are always happy to have people who are interested in the field come see what we do. It is a little bit different than people who are going into it to work in general practice vet clinics, but we can definitely give you a feel for animal handling and some of the things you can expect in the job.”
For more information on Mendocino Animal Care Services Care-a-Van program, or to learn more about volunteer opportunities, call 707-463-4427 or visit Mendocino County’s website.
The post Hard work and a whole lot of heart: Caring for animals with vet tech Sarah O’Rourke appeared first on Local News Matters.